Firefox's market share in Europe beats 20% during the week: the gap narrows at the week-end.

Firefox use in Europe: the web browser is gaining ground during the week. Worldwide, Europe is still in front, while Africa and North America exceed 10%.

Perimeter:

Study carried out from 07/03/06 to 07/09/06

The entire XiTi perimeter

While Firefox's market share in Europe remains steady at the weekend, it is during the week that the challenger to Internet Explorer gains ground: 20.6% from 3 to 7 July 2006 vs 19.8% from 29 May to 2 June 2006.

Does this mean that Firefox is advancing in the corporate market? Watch this space…

With usage types varying from one country to another, where is use of Firefox concentrated inthe home, and where in the workplace?

During the period studied, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy showed the highest level of weekend use. In only two European countries was Firefox used more during the week: Ukraine, with a weekend rate 5.8% lower than the rate during the week, and Estonia (-1.7% at the weekend).

European trend

Firefox's market share reaches 21% over all the countries in Europe with websites audited by XiTi.

The Firefox usage rate progressed from 20.4% to 21.1% over all the European countries with websites audited by XiTi between the week of 29 May to 4 June 2006 (previous study) and the week of 3 to 9 July 2006. Of the 29 countries below, only three saw their rate fall: Estonia, Norway (which had made strong progress since early June) and the United Kingdom. The highest growth was observed in Romania and Slovakia, with +3 and +2 points respectively in the rate of use of Firefox in these two countries.

The top three remain unchanged: Finland keeps the top spot (37.2% of people using Firefox), followed by Slovenia (36.7%) and Slovakia (32.2%). The Czech Republic (+1.7 points) takes 4th place ahead of Poland. Growth in the rate of use of Firefox in France is still smaller than the European average (18.4% vs. 18%).

Internet Explorer still streets ahead

In the week of 3 to 9 July 2006, the average market share of Internet Explorer was 73.3%, over three times higher than that of Firefox at 21.1%.

Opera comes third, with a share well below that of challenger Firefox: 3.7%. Next come Safari (1.4%), Netscape (0.5%) and finally Camino and Sony PSP, which are very little represented.

The three countries with the highest market share for each browser:

Global trend

Oceania reaches 20%, but is still behind Europe.

The rate of use of Firefox is growing on all continents: +0.6 points in Europe, Oceania and South America, +0.4 points in North America and Asia and +0.3 points in Africa.

Africa and South America have now passed the 10% mark in Firefox use.

Will Firefox version 2.0 accelerate the browser's development still further?